I’ve Got the Willies Wednesday: Floating Balloons

Helium balloons give me the willies. Yes, I know, they are just inanimate objects that would not hurt a living soul….and regular balloons do not scare me, but with the addition of the helium, which allows them to float, and move freely unless otherwise secured…this is what gives me the willies. I believe this fear began after I had watched Steven King’s It for the first time. That mini-series had a bunch of creepy balloons in it, that “It” used to put fear into the hearts of children, and the grownups who had gone back to Derry to try and get rid of “It” for good. The image of the floating balloons, combined with his creepy uttering of “we all float down here”, combined to put a fear of these innocent floating objects in my young mind.

Compounding the scariness of the mini-series (especially to a 7 or 8 year old me), was the fact that the night after I had seen It, I woke up in the middle of the night, and there was a balloon floating next to my bed. I know my parents would not have put the balloon there, and I’m pretty sure my brothers did not do it….at the time one of them would have been 5 or 6 and I don’t even know if he had watched It with me, and my other brother would only have been 1 or 2. No, I think these were cosmic forces working against me to put a life-long fear of floating balloons in me. Not that I run in terror when I see a floating balloon, but I can never quite get the image of Tim Curry as “It” out of my head whenever I see one of these creepy balloons…..and the ones that have legs and arms…..don’t even get me started on those!

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ahhh, I remember my sister used to tell me about these mini-series when I was a kid! Wasn’t afraid of balloons of clowns, but I have to agree that balloons with arms & legs (or even oddly shaped) freak me out from time to time. ^^